The reason why you sing.
I have the privilege of working at The Village Church in Dallas, Tx. From time to time they allow a brother to express some of his thoughts from the stage. Today we call that preaching.
Recently I was able to preach on David from Psalm 57 7-11. David, while fleeing from Saul found himself in a cave, opposite of what he thought when Samuel found him shepherding, anointing him as king. With anticipation of reading this Psalm one would expect David to cry out with some type of justification of Lord I didn’t ask for this, you pursued me, yet I’m in a cave… What I love about this Psalm is in the midst of this situation he doesn’t venture nor wallow in that pool of emotions, instead we see the opposite v7 I am determined, O God! I am determined! I will sing and praise you! v8 Awake, my soul! Awake, O stringed instrument and harp! I will wake up at dawn!. In the midst of arguably one of the worst undeserved situations (use italics for a reason) of his life he says I will sing.
Their have been times where cognitively I knew I am supposed to sing but in my heart the pain of a situation and unbiblical expectations, in which God allowed, my heart and mouth was silent. With this sermon I spoke of the same emotions that flooded my heart from this past year and I pleaded with the people that their expectations of God have to be for him and him alone. I exhorted them to make Christ their only song not what is attached to him. Attachments to him and not him alone will give you a heart opposite of David and you will find yourself in suffocating sorrows that is dictated by circumstances and not the nearness of God. The sweetest and greatest thing that God can give is himself while the greatest lie and deception that we could ever believe is that HE is not enough.
So what is the reason for your song? If there is a comma where there should be a period you will find yourself emotionally distraught because somewhere you expected a promise of God that he never promises of himself. I assure there is no greater promise than the constant revealing of God the Son, love of God the Father and power of God the Holy Spirit. The nearness of him is indeed our only good and is the only reason why we should sing. (Psalm 73:25-28)
The need for this type of emotional response is something that has been hitting me for a while now. Growing up, everything was knowledge based. It was even somewhat looked down upon to be too moved by the Spirit and express deep emotion. The people who did were viewed as radicals or hyper-charismatics. However, I think getting lost in a race for more knowledge gets very tedious very fast if there is no emotion to go with it. I’m not sure that this is the message you were trying to get across with this post, but it is very encouraging to hear again the need for passion that stirs emotions deep in our heart – deep enough to cry out in song. Thanks for the word.